Parasite
by 4th3na
Summary: We've always been parasitic at one point or another; I am no less a leech than children who freeload from their parents, leaving abruptly some two decades later. You are no less a scrounger than victims of war struggling to stay alive, and men in power who would stop at nothing to seize their prize. In which a girl of REDACTED origin reflects on a past she can no longer remember.
1. Chapter 1

**NOVEMBER 14, 2050**

Under the blanket of the dark night's sky, little droplets of rain fall in their thousands, influenced one way by a gust of wind; they pitter patter harmlessly, despite each individual raindrop plunging at a breakneck speed, as their contents drench the grass little by large.

If anyone _had_ been up at this hour, they wouldn't have seen a figure at the one stretch of the woods.

A second crack of thunder. Perhaps even the keenest pair of eyes would have missed it - even as a wave of light momentarily lit up the scenery. It would have been easier to take them as another slightly undersized tree, the wind dipping between soft and powerful.

A slight, slow incline of their head betrayed their stillness. The next crack of lightning lit up the next clue - a person.

If another wave of lightning had hit, it would have illuminated them better; features that, on closer inspection, would have given away those of a woman. ...No, a girl. Something of Japanese brown eyes accompanied by thin eyebrows, tucked in with a button nose and thin lips; her ears were hidden behind a slick tuft of raven hair that had escaped a loose ponytail. Small face. It didn't pass any further than her shoulders. A thin, rounded hat -something flatter than the shape of a straw hat - of black hue stopped most of the rain from drenching her face, but she didn't seem to mind, seeing as how she had already knelt down and besmirched her trousers and the bottom of a dark trenchcoat in the floor's mud.

But this did not happen - another strike of lightning did not occur - and no-one but herself was there to see it.

A shovel had been messily strewn to one side, seemingly put down carelessly after the amount of effort exerted to have done what she had already done. There was no use holding it any more.

The patch of land ahead of her, hidden just behind a tucked section of the dark forest, had been misplaced - at day, if anyone dared visit the same land as her, it might have looked a bit offputting. Unnatural. Unprofessional. Hopefully the grass grew over before anyone ever set foot here again.

A slab of rock had been pushed sideways in front of her; in such a manner that looked as if a lot of time and effort had been used to place it as perfectly as possible. Little scrapes in the stone had been made, made as deeply and clearly as possible - despite a part of the woman not wanting it to be.

This was a grave.

 _CARLA D. SHIMADA_

 _Aug. 29th, 2040 - Nov. 13th, 2050_

 _Little Finch._

Upon scrutinization, it would have been obvious that no qualified nor licensed gravedigger dug this messy excuse of a tomb. No, it was far too small to be called a tomb- a mound was a better word. It wouldn't have been a silly accusation to imagine it had been put together by a child.

Nor was that completely untrue.

She didn't know how she knew this girl's birthdate. She just did. It came to her as if in recall she hadn't previously been aware of - learning more of her every day.

But... she also did know how.

 _I didn't mean to. I didn't._

Upon even further scrutinization, it would have been obvious it had only been recently made.

And if anyone was there with her, it would have been obvious (by the dirt and mess on her face and body, at least) that she had dug, deposited, and covered it.

Little flowers that would probably drown by tomorrow adorned its lithe perimeter- there was even a stick at one end, dug into the ground. A single orange ribbon held tight around it.

Only hours had passed since she had carried Carla's body here.

A hitch in breath was the first sign that she was to leave. Carla could rest well here, under the cherry blossoms of Hanamura. They may be dead, thin branches now, but... they would grow beautifully when summer came.

A moment of silence where she only listened the rustling of the leaves around her; the constant tapping of raindrops; the wind that had softened to caress her cheek, before picking up in pace again and flying powerfully.

And then she was up. A slow shift in her leg muscles, where she returned to a ludicrously short height. Mud seeped from her legs as she prepared for a sure scolding when Sojiro caught sight of her, back in the Shimada house where she did not belong.

...

She pulled the mussed trenchcoat - too large for her, apparently - tighter around herself. The rain had since stopped, the bare edges of the sun just dipping over the horizon; illuminating the sky ever so slightly, but with the darkness of night still present. Early morning. She didn't make much noise trudging back through, and - thankfully - without catching the attention of anyone on the forbidden land she'd since left behind.

Not until now, at least.

Her nerves went spiralling in warning a second too late.

"Carla!"

/

 **Hi there! I'm really sorry for how messy this fic is. I've wanted to write a few things for a while now, but this is the first one I've got to - I'm treating it as more of a first time test - I don't like writing such small stories so hopefully the next one will be lengthier if all goes well.**

 **For the first few chapters I'm trying to make it intentionally confusing. If I can somehow manage to pull something off whereas it is puzzling, but enough to go off of and keep reading until you can get a handhold, I think I'll be able to make something out of it without making it super cringy lol. Things will make a lot more sense further down the road, and hopefully it's set where the reader can put the pieces together pretty easily.**

 **I'm going to try and upload to this to 'Archive of our own' as well and see how things go. Since I have a rough idea of how I'd like things to go, another perspective and your take on what you think is going on would be amazing. Constructive criticism is great. Thanks for stopping by ^^**


	2. Chapter 2

The girl's blood ran cold before the words had left their - his - mouth. Distinctly male. She hadn't seen him- not even from a peripheral vision. She hadn't heard him beforehand. His steps were too quiet.

It was... different. No, she had no time to ponder how she'd known he was there a second early - her timing could have been off, in her fright, for all she knew. Why was she overanalyzing this? Why was she still thinking about it? He was still staring, probably. Why wouldn't she turn arou-

"Carla."

...

... Not harsh or coarse enough to be Sojiro. Then-

She barely stopped herself from jumping out of her skin when she felt a hand on her shoulder. _He was closer than I thought._

When she finally got herself to turn around and dip her head upwards slightly, the rattling in her heart softened in a way of relief after what she saw, but kept ever weary. Especially after...

...Especially after last night.

"Hanzo."

She was met with a young boy, only a couple years older than herself.

 _No. Not myself. This is my vessel. Carla is dead._

His hair, of the same raven colour as her own, was parted at its top. Both strips of hair fell in the opposite direction down the sides of his face while covering his ears, stopping at about the end of his jawline while his back hair fell into a loose pony-tail like her own. He who stood before her, sharing similar traits - the narrowed eyes, intense-thin eyebrows, and the family name - was meant to be her brother.

He kept a bitter, displeased expression on him, but remained silent; he seemed perfectly happy to gall her, but apparently, attempted to give her a chance to speak by saying nothing. It wasn't as if he had a happy expression on him all the time - he was going to be groomed to take over as the clan leader for most of his life. Far too much stress on a child, she thought - but the looks he kept now... they weren't just annoyed. They were more than that, and had reason behind them. They were knowing.

She knew why.

What he hadn't been expecting was for her to say nothing else. No explanation, no rile, no response. She'd uttered nothing more than his name.

Without meaning to, both children were caught in a bout of silence as they stared one another down; as if seeing which one would talk first, they'd impossibly vexed one another even more. Finally, and as the closest thing to exasperation - for Hanzo - crossed his face, the hush was broken.

"Are you so intrepid that you would endure father's wrath just to spite me?" Are you going to stare me down until he finds us?

Hanzo spoke quickly in his native japanese tongue. She would need longer to... adjust. She prayed they wouldn't take notice. Maybe pin it down as the trauma of what happened.

"..."

"Filth on your hands is more punishable than blood on them."

Right. Last night. He's talking about last night. He saw. Blood on my hands. It wasn't meant to be hers. It wasn't-

"I needed the air. I slipped," she murmured, finally. "And now I'm going inside."

Just as she turned to get past him, he stopped her with a hand to her wrist again.

A harder grip this time.

"Don't be stupid, Carla," he said indignantly.

"Father's servants need only look at your sorry state once. He'll know." _He's saying there's no point. ...I should leave tonight, I-_

She only paused her train of thought when they began moving east. He held her by the wrist, and she could have swore he was muttering a few choice words underneath his breath. She kept a note of concern - they weren't going back from where they came, but they also weren't returning to their homage. A part of her stilled upon contemplating if he really had planned on ratting her out- she'd have expected as much, but the way they were going, it didn't seem like it. Maybe she'd just always been a bad choice of character.

 _Or maybe the body I chose is still taking over. I cannot forget. I can't._

She didn't feel like glancing at Hanzo's hair dancing in the wind ahead of her, much less the Shimada grounds, so her eyes skip to the sky above instead. Pink streaks begin making themselves known, as the sun dips slightly higher than it had been. Morning was teetering at the edge of the distant mountain-range.

She wasn't sure if it had occurred to her how beautiful Japan was. Hanamura was just one of those places.

"Where are we going?" She asked.

The girl was given no answer. It seemed Hanzo was the silent one now. Still, it wasn't long until he stopped- by the brief glance she caught from him, she couldn't have been the only one uneasy in her boots.

When she cast her gaze away from him, the first thing she caught was a river. Weirdly clear. A roster of trees she'd previously seen on the way there cast shadows over the stream, arched down in curves.

She bet they looked beautiful in Summer.

"Here," she heard, looking down to see Hanzo at its edge. He cast the freezing water over his palms, washing away whatever dirt he'd collected upon holding her earlier.

"If father plans on killing you, die clean," he muttered. Maybe she'd have heard the slightest hint of humour if the meaning behind what he said wasn't so serious.

If only.

She trod softly down the pebbles at the lake's edge, pausing for only a moment before shaking off the trenchcoat and setting it softly at a rock's edge. She took a step forward, looking down at the clear waters. It was a pretty fast-moving current, yes, but at one end of the stream, the land had been hollowed out into still pool- rocks outlined its small size in a circle, small surges and torrents of water escaping between the small openings and spating back into the river below. A small sanctuary admist the currents.

But it wasn't the pristine lagoon that caught her gaze and made her stare into it far deeper than she needed to.

It was the reflection, and Carla Shimada that stared back.

 _Vampirism. Is that what people called it? Was that the name grandparents told their grandchildren on their lap, book in hand, over a hearth for decades of years over, interwoven into history?_

 _But not all stories are real. A silly myth parents told their children when they became too scared to go to bed themselves._

 _It isn't real. Is that what they said?_

 _The truth was, even she doesn't know where she came from. She's never met anyone like her. No-one with the same parasitic traits, both physically and through the mentality she's learned to pick up in order to survive._

 _She can't remember because she's lived too many lives that aren't hers. She can't afford to look back. She can't help it. She has fallen into a hole so black and so deep she cannot see or feel her way up. The girl who barely remembers her name over anything else cannot escape her own mind, and the prison she has built for herself._

 _Who is she? Where does she come from? How does she do what she does? Is she no-one? A ghost among people? Shunned and hunted and burnt and tortured if she ever told a single truth, following what she assumes is her family tradition._

 _...No. I remember._

 _I will not forget, no matter how many people's faces I must steal to live._

 _My name is..._

 _Petra._

 _The word instantly fills my mind after my fingers fumble around my neck, grabbing at a small piece of stone. It's made out like a necklace. At the end, where both chains meet, there is a circle-shaped clasp. I open it, and inside there is a miniscule photo of a girl. Engraved on the opposite smooth side is my name._

 _All these thoughts run through my mind like bullets against my head as I grunt. There is a man on top of me. He twists my abdomen viciously, and a shoot of pain runs through my body - pain tolerance or not, it fucking hurts._

 _I hiss under my breath. There's another girl on the other side of the room. Her screams are still running through the room._

 _Her name is Carla._

 _We're inside the Shimada house. She's pressed up to the door that bangs wildly from the other side, an oversized katana in hand. There are people on the other side. Their shouts are ringing louder than hers; actively threatening whoever is at the root of the ruckus, and that Carla is going to be okay._

 _I twist my body just in time as the large man makes another effort to keep me down. A second too late for him, I strike my elbow out into his gut, earning a roar and a punch my way. I slip away just in time, my quick reflexes earning me a skip in my step._

 _How did I get here?_

 _My stomach tightens wickedly, but it isn't because of the injuries I've sustained._

 _It's because I'm starving._

 _My hand hovers around behind me, feeling at the wall and grasping at whatever promising solid object touches my hand as another wave of pain passes the entirety of my body._

 _"You little bitch." He turns around, revealing a knife that hadn't been there before and swings it mercilessly. He doesn't care if it's an untidy job anymore- his mind is turned into overdrive, ignoring every other sense there is. He's stalwart on killing me._

 _Just as I'm a second away from a stab to my chest, I swing around the object behind me. A winebottle. He's seen it, but it's too late. It curves around-_

 _-my hand wraps around his wrist-_

 _-and it smashes, hard, against the right temple of his face._

 _Things seem to go in slow motion. The cracked glass falls away, piece by piece- rivers of wine slip inbetween, its container now broken and gravity taking control. Shards embed itself into his forehead as blood -oh, god, the blood- perpetrates his skin, pressure pushing out from all directions. When I hit, I hit hard. His skull must have broken. The side of his head explodes._

 _And then there is silence. The hard bangs against the door, the kid's scream, the man's cry of pain seem to fade out of existence as my eyes are focused on one thing and one thing only._

 _I fall over forward, no longer able to care that this man is still alive. The small doubt in my mind, stating he must be unconscious flickers away as my drive for sustenance takes advantage and takes over._

 _My hands grapple at his face, pushing away the remnants of the bottle. My mouth cups over the bloody hole and laps at the oozing liquid. I don't stop to breathe. I just eat, not bothering to sink my teeth in. He's still moaning._

 _I haven't eaten for almost three months. I should be dead._

 _The effects are instantaneous. The adrenaline is still running through my body, but I can feel the relief wash over me like a tidal wave._

 _My ripped clothing, clammy skin, sunken eyes, knotted hair pointing in all directions hardly matter. For a few moments, nothing goes through my mind. There's absolute silence- every alarm in my body that had previously been blaring were quiet. There was nothing but me and my food._

 _Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds go by by the time I realize the kid was standing over me. I'd been so engrossed in the stuff that kept me alive that I'd not once stopped. I didn't even see the katana raised above her head. It came down in an arc... almost peacefully._

 _Everything else happens quickly._

 _My head snaps in another direction - unnaturally, by the look on her face._

 _Oh, god, I didn't mean to. It wasn't me._

 _But it wasn't me in control then. It wasn't._

 _One second was all it took. One moment she was standing over me - this Shimada kid locked in the same room as me - and the next, she was on the other side of the room, a trail of blood in her wake the moment she was thrown._

 _I could hear the sickening crack of skull against metal. She was dead instantaneously._

The girl glanced away from the water's edge, wasting no time in jumping directly into the pond. It was freezing, but she didn't seem to care, as she disappeared into the depths. It was a better distraction than last night, and she couldn't afford to waste time right now. It may well be the last time she saw Hanzo, for all she knew.

If Hanzo huffed, she didn't hear it from under the water. Not until she came back to breathe, at least- breaking through the surface, she whipped her hair one way, water droplets escaping in large quantities. The first thing she saw through the holes in her hair was a none-too-happy face.

"Carla," he snapped. "Are you trying to die? You'll freeze to death before you leave the water!"

She huffed again, still ever quiet. "I'm fine," she said, despite a sharp feeling making its way up her abdomen.

 _It hasn't fully healed yet._

"Am I not allowed to feel alive for a little while longer before father takes me away?" She wiped away brown smears that had made themselves at home along her arms, cursing as her breath hitched. Cold.

Any concern that had flashed by Hanzo's eyes was quickly shut down as he extended a hand, too stubborn to let it show.

A ridged eyebrow on her face shot up for a moment before she took it, refusing to show any more discomfort. Calling the cold wind against her drenched clothes pleasant would be... the wrong choice of wording, but above anything, it made her feel alive. The blood running through her body, adrenaline coursing through her vains and her heart beating a thousand miles a minute - all working to keep her awake - was what she yearned for, behind this facade.

The water seeped from her clothes, her hands wrapping around her clump of hair and throwing it over her shoulder.

"All gone," she murmured. Hanzo let go once she stood on her own two feet, staying unnaturally quiet.

Moments passed by as the pair said nothing. Her eyes were cast over the rippling waters as a familiar ribbon danced in the air, loose from her wrist.

 _I don't know what happened. I can't remember. I can't._

 _She was on her feet now. She didn't know how long she'd been standing, or how much time had passed since. Nor even was she aware of how she'd been able to stop lapping at the blood that kept her alive._

 _Maybe because the bangs on the door had stopped. Maybe because she was in a daze._

 _Either way, the pressure was getting to her. If the silence was any indication, the head of the Shimada family was about to burst through the door. Walking into a room with a mess of a girl, a bloody corpse and their dead daughter... they would torture her worse than just burn her on a stake._

 _My name is Petra._

 _Her heart beat faster as shouting from outside the door neared. The voices were different now. His name is Sojiro, I think._

 _My name is Petra._

 _I didn't have time to make a decision. I couldn't jump through the window- the fall probably wouldn't kill me because of what I am, but the guards and their silver spears certainly would._

 _I whipped around to the still little girl on the other side of the room and look at my hands. Before I know what I'm doing, I find myself glancing into the grand japanese-esque mirror on a desk beside me._

 _A pair of wild, sharp eyes belonging to a woman looks back. She has dark, thin eyebrows, short black hair that curls at its ends and freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. Her face is smeared with blood and dirt, more than one small cut littered across it._

 _It isn't even my old body, and I'm doing it again. I'm running further and further away from who I am. I'm turning into more of a ghost every time this happens._

 _But if I do not, I will die._

 _She woman turns away from the mirror, and I move towards the girl. I trace my hands hesitantly across her face, sliding a finger down to her wrist, while a hand presses against her chest._

 _I know she's already dead, but a part of me is screaming that I check anyway._

 _I am not surprised by the stillness of the result I get, but I feel a part of me break. Why do I feel like this? I knew she'd died the moment she hit the wall. Why?_

 _This is fucking useless. A waste of time._

 _My hands turn deft, staring intently at her corpse while I feel around her head. I don't slow down, even as my finger makes contact with the warm blood fresh in her hair._

 _My name is Petra._

 _I bring it to my mouth._

 _At first, there is nothing._

 _And then I feel it._

 _A small buildup of pain makes itself known in some of my joints. I can feel my insides shifting, parts of me moving aside and knitting together- I'm not sure where I'd start if I had to explain it, but if I had to choose a single word, it would be... changing. I press my eyes closed, pushing away from her body; small temporary fractures shiver upside my body, but I've done this for so long I barely give the pain any notice._

 _By the time things subside, I've hunched my body forward and everything gradually feels... smaller. Shorter. The ground feels closer than it had been before, and when hair far longer than it had been before falls over my shoulder, and I open my eyes to flex my knuckles, I know it has been done._

 _I waste no time. I put my hands under her body, hauling her up and standing on my own two feet, walking towards the window. Her body must be... deposited elsewhere. I'll bury it. I have to._

 _I stop only once to glance hesitantly into the mirror I'd looked into before._

 _Carla Shimada, daughter of Sojiro, sister to two brothers, stares back._

"Did you plan on staying sour, or are you going to say something?" Carla - or rather Petra - asks.

Hanzo had a few choice words in mind, but decided to try an alternate route. He was running on limited time... couldn't afford to waste anything. Catching on the risk of her getting a chest infection only shortened how long he could spare- she needed to be inside soon, but not before he took his chance. He needed to see what he could pick apart while he had the opportunity.

Ever the suspicious twelve-year old Hanzo.

"Have you eaten?" he asked.

For a moment her heart almost sunk before she was able to check off any chance of him knowing. No, she was fine.

"Mm."

"Lier."

"You want to wear Sojiro's coat?" She asked satirically, finally turning to look him in the eye.

A slight sneer crept up his features. "No."

"You won't get the chance again. So melodramatic. Too unfashionable?"

"Please," he huffed, but allowed the tiniest smile to steal away his lips for the first time. Good a sign as ever, right?

A quiet laugh-snort escaped through her nose. A pregnant pause ensued.

 _I panted slowly, having forgot how frail the body of a ten-year old is. I cringed slightly at the thought, deciding not to dwell on it anymore. Reverting to my old one, I could have brought the body from one side of the room to the other, but like this, it took me precious time. Still, I could not afford to turn in the heat of the moment. Pests are to be exterminated, and she had no doubt in her mind they would do worse than that._

 _The last minute had been spent snatching cups, containers, glasses- crumbling through her fingers, falling in cracks- anything able to keep in contents._

 _After that, she'd scrounged the man's body; she'd done it too many times to feel any bout of sickness at the image. His mutilated body must be harvested quickly - broken like an eggshell so that the contents will pour fresh in similarity to his skull. He was no longer recognisable, and whatever godforsaken excuse she could tell to them in this little girl's body was the least of her worries now. Oh, god, Sojiro could have opened up the door at any moment... fancy goblets and little ringboxes she used to keep his blood, he'd have watched his daughter cannibalise a man for his lifeblood. It was sprayed over her fingers, her hair, clothes, knees- it only deepened the situation she would be in further down the line, but at least he wouldn't have to walk into her only minutes before- without control of her what her own mind nor limbs chose what and what not to do, it would have been beyond a savage image. His insides were still spread across the floor now, and a sight to see even a Shimada assassin would have trouble keeping inside his stomach full. She'd slid them under the bed - drawer - even outside the window and into the bushes below, to collect later. Upon second thoughts, it probably wasn't a good idea to hide blood in the same room that would likely be pilfered, foraged and cajoled mercilessly later on - probably wasn't a good idea to start with my next few month's food supply over hiding the body, either - but in the heat of the moment, I'd made a decision._

 _Fuck if I'm a bad decision-maker. In any body._

 _Now, at the end of the room - at the window where she leaned precariously, body in arms - she was ready._

 _I had no time. I had no right to, but my fingers were already tracing her skin softly, as if wiping away tears if she'd had the time to cry any._

 _No child deserved this. It wasn't even some sort of... sort of victim of war thing._

 _It was just a mistake. A fucking unlucky inconvenience._

 _I cannot change this._

 _My palms opened up, my fingers letting loose as she slowly drifted away further from me. Her small body rolled off of my arms, gravity claiming her to the grounds. She was swept softly down the bushes, rolled into a field of flowers underneath a canopy of leaves._

 _I'm sorry, little one._

 _And then the door burst open. I'd already turned around a second early - what kind of reflex is that? - and there he was. Head of the Shimadas._

 _Sojiro._

 _While I was frozen in place, his expression seemed to do the same. A mix of a contortion of rage, dried tears that had probably been wiped away shamefully under the pretense lie that "a man should never cry"._

 _He had already seen everything. The body, the blood, the knives and katana that had clattered to the floor._

 _And his baby girl, leaning on the window by her back._

 _Sojiro did not know when he had started running, only that he did. He ran and he did not stop. He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around his daughter, and he did not let go._

 _Petra didn't know why her vision was blurred with little tears, after that. She had no right to cry deceitfully in the stead of this little girl. He had no idea what really happened to his daughter._

 _That is why she cried._

 _And under the mumbles of her supposed father, going over the same old 'you are alright' and 'you're safe' and 'we're okay's, under his break of character behind the curtain, over his shoulder -_

 _Was a little Hanzo, staring into space and the chaos this little room held._

 _He had been the second faint voice behind the door, and Petra felt more deceitful than she ever had been in her life before, despite not remembering where her story had even began by how many lives she had pretended to live in the shadow of society._

 _But she couldn't care. She is nothing but a parasite. Parasites could not afford to, nor did they have the neural capacity nor brains to begin to know anything more than survival. Parasites do not have hearts._

 _Right?_

 _I will bury her tonight. They may not have closure until the day they realize the supposed Carla has been outside the house for too long - I will have left - and they stumble across the grave whose date they will think is wrong._

 _I will retrieve her body,_

 _and I will bury Carla tonight._

"Fuck," she muttered. By the look Hanzo gave her she guessed Carla didn't often swear.

Fuck.

But... it didn't matter. She'd be a fool to think that Sojiro would do anything else but seperate her from her kin and raise her differently. Or if the conversation of him and a relative she'd eavesdropped on earlier revealing this was any sign, at least. It would be her last chance.

And she won't have even met her youngest brother.

Maybe that was a blessing in disguise.

"I can't breathe in this tension. Just... break the ice," she continued, looking at him straight. "What is it you want to know?"

He looked at her long and hard, and for a moment, she even wondered how she'd get out of this one if he asked the obvious. She supposed it didn't matter now.

He shook his head, allowing himself a little flexibility by raising his legs and crossing them underneath them. It seemed the breaking of the ice had done some good, after all.

"I'm not going to ask you how. Such things should be private. You are alive, and that is all that matters."

...

...

"But you are aware of what this grand Shimada clan does, right?"

His eyes cast downwards into the waters thats ripples had since calmed dramatically, narrowing them as he went on.

"They kill. People. Trade the poison and guns father's friends use. The Dragons do not differentiate us from any other assassin across the country," he continued, whispering his last sentence.

"You wonder why my vocabulary is different from yours," he said sarcastically now, allowing the tiniest hint of satire as he raised his head to meet her eyes.

"I am the eldest child. They have been grooming me since the day I was born to take it over when I am of age."

And then he stopped. No continuation, no follow-up, nothing to say whether or not he desired the spot of the clan leader one day or if he didn't. The statement hung in the air grimly. She imagined this would have been on his mind for a while now- Hanzo never got close to 'opening up' - father would disapprove. He hadn't even so much as practised anything venting, and perhaps he wasn't doing it right. But... it was different when you were saying it to someone both people knew well they wouldn't see one another again.

They would know. Hanzo was in the same hallway as her when both kids overheard father in the next room.

But she said nothing, in turn. There was nothing she could say to change anything, and he just needed to say it- he didn't seek 'approval', nor anything close to understanding.

Just a listener who was about to disappear. He would allow that, and she knew respectfully that silence worked best.

Even if she was an imposter under everyone's noses.

"Alright," he finally murmured. "Contrary to what you may think, I don't want you to freeze to death. Yet."

A blouse fell over her shoulders, none too kindly. She knew what he meant.

A light snort escaped her mouth this time and she nodded, standing up. He'd already made his way up the rocks, trenchcoat under his arm, expecting her to follow without looking behind him. She only stopped him once.

"Hanzo."

"Carla."

"Can you do me a final favour?"

"No, but you will force me anyway."

"Don't tell Genji." About me.

He stopped at the edge. He glanced around to meet a sincere face- or something close to it, anyway. A wave of understanding had already passed him, even if he didn't show it- and of course he didn't, choosing to react with a slow but stoic nod instead.

In what they'd overheard earlier, Sojiro didn't plan to- she doubted Hanzo would go against his father's wishes anyway, but she ultimately wanted to be sure. She didn't know why.

But the thought of Genji growing up without knowing he had a sister was reassuring.

And of course it was bad, too. It was. But he would be spared the mess of what a parasite had caused, and anything else caught in the crossfire.


	3. Chapter 3

Both children exchange weary glances. Petra is leaned up on the back door of the house, a hand wrapped around the doorknob. It's a safe bet - there were no noises on the other side, nor anyone they saw to begin with - but any chance that a servant saw them together would be questionable, at best. Carla had been put on a ban from all outdoor activity until further notice - grounded, essentially - and Hanzo to do the same, away from her. They both had good excuses to rat one another out if they wanted to, but they did not; if anything, the entirety of the journey was silent, and that was something she could appreciate. The last thing she wanted was a sappy goodbye - which she didn't expect from him regardless - and soil herself in an even deeper chicanery.

He nodded, and she twisted the knob. It opened quietly, revealing a hallway with tapestries along its sides depicting stories of dragons and myth. He moved forward. She followed close behind, her hakana - still cold and slightly damp - ceasing to whip around in the wind once she came inside.

She wasn't aware of how quiet this girl's body could be, but apparently she'd been skilled in the arts of stealth, as she found it easy to walk as silently as Hanzo was ahead.

And then a headache hit. One worse than before, but not completely unlike the one she'd been able to sense knowing where Hanzo had been outside in the night. A feeling that urged her so strongly she couldn't possibly ignore it - the same one from before - but not so overwhelming that she'd give anything away.

Without thinking, she darted forward in a step and threw her hands over him - one over Hanzo's chest, and the other over his mouth - and, turning 180 degrees, fell backwards behind the curtains in one fell swoop. She could feel him tense the moment she'd touched him, and she wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't put up a fight either by the feeling of sucked breath behind her covering hand... but he'd stilled himself well enough. Taking the risk, she removed her hand from his mouth and brought it to the curtains, stopping them from moving quickly in a pinch. Only a second later did they hear the footsteps. Her right temple pounded, and she beat back the impulse to cup a hand around it.

They could see a silhouette behind the curtains. A servant who would have spotted them less than two seconds ago made their way down the hallway, and she only released a breath when she was sure all traces of them were gone.

Moreover, she left the curtains because of the sudden stop to her migraine. Just like that, it had disappeared.

She held an air of concern about her solely because this hadn't happened before- not once. Yes, it may be because she simply couldn't remember - with everyone she shifted into, she was given a scarily fresh mindset, memory, and life. As time went on the dramatic change in mentality became fainter and she got by much easier, but it wasn't an uncommon thing to forget the pasts of every person she impersonated, leaving her memory patchy at best. Her own past - if she dare even say she had one - was long past the threshold of gone and beyond hope, hence why she was a ghost among society. She could only hold onto what she had now; a dirtied picture and her name in a locket around her neck. She didn't know why, or how- she just knew it was paramount she never forget her name, at least. Never.

To ensure she never forgot those things, she would keep it with her always. Bathing, she kept it on. Sleeping, she kept it on. If a corpse one day, she kept it on.

Petra would sooner die than lose the only decency she had left; she would bring her locket into the land of the dead when her time eventually came, and she would wear it in the depths of hell.

Right. Because that's the path her ancestors walked down. 'To the fires of damnation with the Vampires.'

And that is what Petra is. A leech. What the common folk tatter on in myth and legend: a vampire. She can't even remember her age - any sort of far recall draws a borderline headache or a complete blank - but she most certainly isn't a child, at least. ...She thinks. It's the body she's using that is.

Like her, Hanzo kept quiet and left the moment it was good to go. "Father taught you good hearing?" For a moment she didn't register his rare sarcasm, and the only thing stopping her impulsive behavior - a trait she didn't have until adopting this body, where Carla's childlike mind will continue to grow until the phases of shifting have passed - was an even greater threat she'd just become aware of just ahead.

In the time it took her to realize, she had skipped up quietly, able to take her time to appreciate the tapestries and the stories the wall-art told; they had been nearing, and her heart almost sunk itself when she saw a particular cupboard just outside of the door where yesterdays events had occured. She was too nerve-struck to register how short a time it had taken for them to arrive- she'd already made her way past Hanzo far faster than she should have ever made known, as she felt his eyes burning into her back as soon as she rounded a corner and stood as casually as she could - though in failure - and let her eyes jump about the room in a last-ditch attempt to seem... preoccupied.

It was probably cleaned by now, but he wasn't getting anywhere near the room. Especially the cupboard.

 _Hurry. Hurry, damnit!_

 _This is the worst possible place I could have chosen to do this, I thought, as I shouldered container upon container of my earlier findings; little cannisters about the size of my fist, a gooey red liquid sloshing thickly on the inside._

 _For pete's sake, they'll be pilfering this room like some investigation! Which... it very well is. Throwing them away is not an option, unless I want to lose both my control and my mind... letting them fall from the window would undoubtedly break them, whether they were lucky enough to hit the leaves or not. I am not willing to take that risk. I can't keep them on my person- just for the next few days, they're searching everyone who passes the next fucking hallway!_

 _I shove the few last ones in, hiding them sparsely across the hallway in little cloth bundles. It's a broad risk, but if they find my stash in one go, I won't have anything. Little clinks sound delicately as the wind from an open night window slip in to caress my face as if in comfort._

 _It's the best I can do. There's no use scolding myself over something I can't change now. Brings something to mind._

 _And so I keep moving._

The blood containers are still in it. That is why.

Yesterday's brief memory threatens to build up another headache at the back of her head. Thankfully, Hanzo crosses the space quickly and no further trouble comes to meet Petra at her doorstep.

"I can make it from here. Any further and father himself will catch you," Carla-Petra murmurs, insinuating that he should turn. Her brain buzzed softly. He didn't meet her eyes.

"...Yes. You're right," Hanzo says, tilting his head upwards as if lost in a gaze down the hallway. An awkward silence threatened to envelop them for the third time today. Neither of them were good at goodbyes- she hadn't expected anything less from a child, but he was a sharp kid. He just didn't enjoy them, it looked like. Not that she expected he'd done any before now.

He cleared his throat. They were running on limited time, but they didn't need to exchange much words.

"Goodnight, Hanzo." Petra didn't feel like pulling up an out-of-character, icebreaker speech again- nor did he to end the night. Before he could even register her hand slipping onto the back of his shoulder, it left along with she.

He said nothing, nodding only once. His eyes trailed her figure walking down the hallway, and he urged his body to turn and return to his own dorm. Eventually it did begin moving, albeit slowly, and - when he was sure she was gone and out of earshot - only two words sealed his last talk for tonight. He put on Sojiro's coat.

"Goodbye, Carla."

She reaped the smallest bit of closure upon hearing what he had to say, unseen further down the hall. Unfortunately for him, Petra was anything but with a normal set of hearing. Even if it wasn't what those words for meant for, his bid of farewell would stay with this dead girl Carla forever. A final goodbye, one way or another.

She was currently seated before Sojiro, going over phrases and rules of the ancient Shimada clan; some had been with them for hundreds of years, while others she was sure he'd underlined to her, specifically, over the recent event. Having slipped into the room from the hallway only minutes ago, her half-racing mind grasped at whatever she could remember.

 _'You shall be trained, taught, and raised separately from your siblings. The doctor will see you twice a week.'_

His voice, along with others, resonated through her head. She wasn't sure if it was her losing focus that made his statements bounce off of her head and become numb, but her mind drifted to summing up how long she could stay. For a second time. She estimated a few months, at most, and then she could leave and depart from their lives. Save them the trouble. This body she'd incorporated wouldn't age, courtesy of these vampiric traits, and she would have to use her 'supplies' sparingly. A load of other complicated pieces came to mind she'd have to keep note of, but she'd get by. She always did. Heh - reminded her of a trek across a little piece of Russia, and the comical trouble and companions that came along with it.

...

Wait. What?

I... didn't remember that before.

I remembered something.

God, I **remembered** something.

Her mind was in a momentary reel of shock at the brief memory that had struck her so suddenly, yet so... casually, as if just recalling something normally. A part of her was afraid she'd lose it again, another piece of her buzzed with some unknown feeling of awe - it was the first sign, ever, she could recall something in a past body and life - and another little bit warned her that it may be something her mind had just made up. That's it- I may be going insane.

Her body was stock-still and had instinctively tensed up, but not because of the sudden realisation; it was Sojiro just in front of her she'd realised had been gazing at her looking into space. How long had he been watching her? I'm an idiot. This girl's naive personality is taking me over at a climax.

He was a cruel man, it was said, to get things done. He was, most of the time. Looking through this girl's memories, she could recall more times than one where scoldings were terrible- the cat o' nine tails she saw on the wall on the way in concerned her enough, paired up with these memories. (Luckily, he hadn't made any signs of using it yet.) The fact he'd shed tears in front of Hanzo and her both, tight in his embrace only a day before, was the furthest she thought he'd ever go. But for a split second, she swore she could have seen a flicker of concern pass by his eyes. Maybe his expression had softened, even. Whatever it was, though, stopped the moment it started.

Still, Petra swore he continued the reciting just a touch quicker. Among his lines she picked up the likes of different tutoring, taking regular supervised outings to 'reconnect with your home, Japan' as he would say it, and resettled in a different location.

They really were serious about the separation stuff. That was... easier, a part of her insisted.

When all was said and done, she found herself being led through the same hallway she'd snuck through with Hanzo. She could only hope he'd left long before then. The rumours of Sojiro's hearing were no lies. Minutes felt like they'd passed in seconds. Apparently an hour had passed in that room, and she felt as if she was travelling in time. She felt numb.

Now alone, Sojiro's retreating figure faded away in the hall's shadow. She clicked the door shut, falling backwards on her back. She'd been guaranteed privacy, but as if that was believable in her current state. Their supposed daughter was found bloody and wild in a dirtied room sent to ruin, a mauled corpse strewn to one side only a day ago - of course they hadn't.

It may have been a waste of time - she could be using it to stock up or think over the memory revelation from earlier - but she refused to move onto anything before checking to make sure. Knowing someone was watching was the worst nightmare she could scrounge up. She slowly slid off of the bed, slipping on a pair of slippers with some inscripted Kanji she didn't recognise painted on them. She felt around the room walls slowly, praying there were no cameras- the likelier scenario would be little camera chips that detected sound, not live video. Sojiro watching through a screen his supposed child daughter feeling around for anything out of place with the deft hands of an expert... calling that suspicious would be an understatement.

She spent the next hour searching every nook and cranny. Any floorboard she could peep through, any hollow walls, any pockets secrets could be kept in... anything out of place.

She found keys. Not exactly what she'd been expecting, but she'd take it. Assuming Sojiro and his men had very recently cleaned and pampered out the room themselves was unnerving - perhaps putting it there was a trap or, in the rarer case, something they'd left behind and forgotten could come in trouble later if they came searching for it, but she was willing to take the risk this time.

And then there was... nothing. Petra found nothing out of the unusual. No cameras, no sound-detectors, no spyware. It perplexed her, and she was tempted to go over everything a third time, but she had to trust in her own ability - even if she couldn't remember where she'd picked them up - and sighed softly in defeat. Maybe they drew a line at peeping in a girl's room. Maybe it was typical of Sojiro to choose guards instead. He and the Clan had embraced modern tech and slight change over the years, she knew, but that didn't mean they were incredibly strict in tradition.

Rule of thumb to them, she guessed, was to leave a blind eye just this once for their apparently traumatised daughter.

Tomorrow. She'll check again tomorrow.

For now, she swept her earlier findings from under the rug. She threw her fingers around the little glass vials, ranging in different sizes but all sharing similar contents.

Blood.

She swallowed slowly, forcing herself not to drink now. These would have to do sparingly. Jugging half of her stock in about a month or two from now would, with any hope, keep her good on food for as long as she predicted. She'd be perfectly fine, if she was careful.

She'd lasted this long. A little mishap here wouldn't kill her.

Her thoughts mulled on to earlier; how she'd remembered some old memory, out of nowhere, like it was yesterday. The thing is, she still hadn't forgotten anything; the reminiscence was as clear as it had been earlier, and she could remember... snow. People she knew. The spirit of the Motherland Russia, where she'd apparently been.

All this went through her mind as she fell back softly into the pampered bed. She wasn't fussy - couldn't be if you wanted to survive as a literal outcast - and anything moderately coveted and moderately clean made a well enough bed. But... hell, if she could remember the last time she'd fell back into a bed as good as this one. She'd been on the run all her life, she guessed; probably coming from somewhere else before she'd arrived in the Shimada house yesterday, ragged and starving. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. Maybe she, and the legacy of this Shimada girl, would be alright. That's what she thought as her vision darkened and her eyelids drooped.

Just maybe.


End file.
